He suddenly realized he had made a fatal mistake. The eyes of this True Inheritor—the one who had placed second in the Thirty-Six Peaks tournament—seemed gentle, yet they could pierce through the three layers of his inner shirt to the cold sweat drenching his back.

"Junior Brother Chen, you seem a bit hasty. Why don’t I get a clear answer from him before we decide what to do?"

Chen Hong couldn’t help but force a smile.

"S-Senior Brother Xu, you are correct. I was indeed being too hasty..."

Xu Yunfan lowered his gaze, ignoring Chen Hong’s hesitant demeanor, and turned his eyes toward Jiang Jingguo.

This Sword Pavilion True Inheritor, dressed as a Scholar, now wore a ferocious expression. His once-handsome features were twisted into a venomous mask, and the hatred bursting from his eyes seemed to drop the temperature on the third floor by several degrees.

The chilling aura seeping from between his clenched teeth, combined with his faintly trembling fingertips, made him look just like a Fierce Beast about to devour its prey.

"Have we met?"

Xu Yunfan’s fingers lightly gripped the blue-black beast-head hilt of the Shaking Mountain Sea-Suppressing Hammer. The dark patterns on the hammer’s body flickered as his Qi Force ebbed and flowed.

Jiang Jingguo suddenly let out a sharp laugh like a night owl’s screech.

"Xu Yunfan, you’re too arrogant! Someone will take care of you. Without the Taoist Sect, you’re nothing! Jade Capital City isn’t a place you can just come and go as you please."

With that, Jiang Jingguo’s face turned white, his head lolled to the side, and he fell completely silent.

’Dead?!’

Xu Yunfan’s brow tightened instantly. His knuckles rapped against the beast-head hilt of his Shaking Mountain Sea-Suppressing Hammer, producing a clear, metallic ring. The Sword Pavilion’s True Inheritor had actually used the Broken Jade Technique to sever his own heart meridian. Even for a battle-hardened veteran like Xu Yunfan, this fierce, Jade and Stone Burn Together mentality was completely unexpected.

Chen Hong’s expression changed slightly. He hurried forward to check for breath and feel for a pulse, then turned back with a grave face.

"Senior Brother Xu... he’s dead."

"My son!!"

A heart-wrenching, mournful roar erupted from downstairs. The sound wave, carrying a sharp Qi Gang, sliced through all the railings on the third floor.

A gray shadow shot up as if stepping on air, like a phantom. Everywhere it passed, the wooden stairs exploded inch by inch.

The newcomer had wild, white hair, and the longsword in his hand burst with a dazzling cyan light.

A Taoist Sect disciple beside Xu Yunfan paled. "It’s the Third Elder of the Sword Pavilion, Jiang Tianyang! He’s a Grandmaster of the Organ Cultivation Realm."

When the old man’s withered fingers touched Jiang Jingguo’s still-warm forehead, the entire tavern fell into an eerie silence.

He slowly pulled his trembling hand away from his son’s neck and noticed a shard of a broken sword clutched in Jiang Jingguo’s fist. As Jiang Tianyang gently picked it up, his own lips began to tremble.

The moment the sword shard turned to dust in his palm, the surrounding lanterns suddenly went out. Only the twelve blood grooves on the old man’s longsword lit up one by one with a crimson glow.

"What a... True Inheritor of the Taoist Sect!"

Jiang Tianyang ground out every word from between his teeth, his face, covered in age spots, now as ferocious as a demon’s.

His stooped body suddenly straightened, and the phantom images of seven longswords formed from Qi Gang appeared behind him.

’Seven Kills Sword?!’

It was one of the Sword Pavilion’s Secret Martial Arts, a killing technique of great renown in the Mortal World.

’I’ve been brushing up on the various sects’ techniques recently.’

Xu Yunfan’s expression remained as placid as an undisturbed well. He gave the seemingly deranged Jiang Tianyang only a fraction of his attention; the rest of his hawk-like gaze swept over every corner of the buildings surrounding Changfeng Tavern.

’A clever, interlocking trap. A grand production, indeed.’

He pressed his tongue to the roof of his mouth in a silent, cold sneer. The timing of Jiang Jingguo’s suicide just now, followed by Jiang Tianyang’s perfectly-timed appearance, was far too exquisite a coincidence.

***

Three hundred zhang away, a three-story waterside pavilion with upturned eaves stood quietly on the bank of a tributary of the Jade River. Its style—cyan tiles and vermilion railings—was identical to the thousands of other government-built pavilions in the city.

From this cunning vantage point, which offered a perfect glimpse of Changfeng Tavern’s third floor, a carved window lattice was half-hidden by a Xiangfei Bamboo Curtain. The bronze bells on the eaves hung motionless in the twilight.

No one could have guessed that within this viewing platform, which blended seamlessly with the surrounding buildings, several figures sat, their auras suppressed to the absolute limit.

Inside the pavilion, the scent of agarwood lingered. Several figures were hidden in the mottled light and shadows cast by the bamboo curtain.

One of them, an effeminate-looking man, lightly tapped his cyan jade teacup. Reflected in the cup were the faint ripples of Qi Force fluctuating from the direction of the Changfeng Tavern.

"Brother Chen, do you think that Xu Yunfan can stand against Jiang Tianyang?"

The effeminate man’s voice was like silk soaked in ice water.

Chen Yu toyed with the jade beads in his hand, a cold laugh mixing with the sound of them clicking together.

"Our informant in the Taoist Sect says he defeated several Daoist Children of the Organ Cultivation Realm while still in the Bone Marrow Cleansing Realm. Even Chu Cangming lost to him."

His tone shifted. "However, a tournament ring isn’t a life-and-death battle. Jiang Tianyang has been immersed in the Organ Cultivation Realm for a full 60 years. In a fight to the death, I wonder if that Xu Yunfan can handle him."

BANG!

The black-robed figure in the northeast corner nodded. "A tournament is not a battlefield of life and death, after all! Sixty years ago, Jiang Tianyang was already on the verge of mastering Internal Organ Cultivation Strength Forming Gang. With the resources of the Jiang Mansion all these years, I’m afraid he’s already cultivated the Sword Pavilion Secret Manual to the Rainbow Transformation Realm!"

"Interesting."

A hoarse female voice came from the window. A half-burnt face was visible beneath a silver mask. "I’ll bet three Dragon Tiger Golden Cores that Xu Yunfan won’t last thirty breaths."

She tapped the tobacco pipe in her hand. "Back in the day, that old dog used this Seven Kills Sword technique to slaughter three cultivators at the Great Mastery of Internal Cultivation in Xuankong State. It caused a huge stir and caught the attention of the entire Mortal World."

The hunchbacked old man, who had been silent all this time, suddenly spoke.

"Xu Yunfan is a genius. A genius among geniuses. He reached the Bone Marrow Cleansing Realm in two years."

The brocade-robed youth in the darkest corner suddenly chuckled. He was toying with a Bronze Waist Token, the kind unique to the servants of the Jiang Mansion. The serial number on its face, "Bing-Xu 76," was the very identification token Xu Yunfan had when he was in the Jiang Mansion.

"If it doesn’t work this time, there’s always next time. If next time fails, there’s the time after that. Eventually, there will be a time when he’s caught off guard and dies on the spot."

***

「Changfeng Tavern, on the third floor, now a scene of devastation」

Jiang Tianyang’s withered body suddenly snapped straight. The seven illusory sword phantoms behind him solidified, and the twelve blood grooves on his Broken Jade Sword erupted with a dazzling, crimson light.

He took a single step forward. The entire third floor of the Changfeng Tavern exploded inch by inch, and spiderweb-like cracks spread from the column bases to the load-bearing beams. The wooden beams groaned as if on the verge of collapse.

"Seven Kills, Soul-Slaughter!"

Before the blade even arrived, the chilling Sword Gang had already transformed into seven giant, blood-red pythons, lunging forward to bite.

Xu Yunfan’s feet sank three inches into the floor. He held the Shaking Mountain Sea-Suppressing Hammer horizontally in front of him, and the dark patterns on its body lit up, revealing the phantom image of a mountain.

When the first stream of Sword Qi struck the face of the hammer, the muscles in his forearm tensed like steel cables. The Pure Yang True Qi under his skin condensed into flowing, reddish-gold patterns, and he forcibly shattered the Sword Qi.

The shockwave swept out, and the carved screen in the adjacent private room split in two with a CRACK.

’His strength... it’s a bit weak!’

Jiang Tianyang’s Sword Momentum suddenly changed. His second sword, "Po Jun," swung upward from below. Wherever the tip of the sword passed, the air itself seemed to condense into frost crystals.

Xu Yunfan’s expression didn’t change in the slightest. He sank his waist and twisted his hips, bringing his hammer down in an overlapping, two-part smash. The instant the hammer and sword collided, his shoulder blades made a sound like a bowstring snapping taut. This was the Mountain-Collapse Form of the Thousand-Pound Mountain-Shaking Hammer Technique.

A wave of Qi exploded outward. The eight-immortals table between them collapsed with a ROAR, and wood splinters embedded themselves in the surrounding pillars and beams like arrows.